1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a two-stroke internal combustion engine, and more specifically relates to a two-stroke internal combustion engine that is capable of reducing the blow-by of air-fuel mixture.
2. Description of Related Art
Two-stroke internal combustion engines, composed of only a small number of parts, are lightweight and compact. Therefore, they are conveniently used as power sources of chain saws and brush cutters. Two-stroke internal combustion engines, in general, have a structure in which a piston opens and closes exhaust ports of a cylinder in its up-and-down movements in the cylinder. Since such engines are configured to discharge exhaust gas from the combustion chamber while supplying air-fuel mixture into the combustion chamber, they involve the problem that the mixture charged into the combustion chamber and yet unburned is discharged outside. This is the problem so-called “blow-by”. The blow-by of air-fuel mixture not only deteriorates the fuel consumption but also invites an increase of unburned component (HC=hydrocarbon) in the exhaust gas.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. S59-170423 A (No. 170423 of the year 1984) has an object to diminish the “blow-by” of air-fuel mixture, and proposes to provide a plurality of scavenging ports opening into the combustion chamber, thereby introducing air-fuel mixture from some of the scavenging ports remoter from an exhaust port into the combustion chamber and introducing fresh air from the others of the scavenging ports nearer to the exhaust port. According to this proposal, since the fresh air is introduced into the combustion chamber in addition to air-fuel mixture, and works to scavenge the combustion chamber, the blow-by amount of air fuel mixture is reduced. This method of scavenging is called “stratified scavenging”.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. S59-170423 A (No. 170423 of the year 1984) proposes another method of stratified scavenging. The proposal of this publication is explained below in greater detail. An invention disclosed in this publication relies on the theory that, to reduce the blow-by phenomenon in a two-stroke internal combustion engine, new air (air-fuel mixture) introduced into the combustion chamber and the burnt gas remaining in the combustion chamber should preferably be prevented from merging. From this standpoint, this publication proposes the invention related to an engine in which scavenging ports are provided at positions symmetrical of an imaginary line connecting the center of the cylinder bore and the center of the exhaust port. At each side of the imaginary line, the scavenging port is composed of a pair of divisional scavenging ports separated by a partition wall, which regulates the directions of air-fuel mixture flowing out of the individual scavenging ports. The engine further has a cavity acting as a scavenging-airflow attenuator at a location opposite from the exhaust port about the center of the cylinder bore. A first one of each pair of divisional scavenging ports, located closer to the exhaust port is oriented away from the exhaust port, that it, upward. In contrast, a second one of each pair of divisional scavenging ports, located closer to the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity, is oriented toward that cavity.
According to the invention of the publication No. S59-170423 A, scavenging airflows exit from the right and left second divisional scavenging ports in which the partition walls regulate the flow directions toward the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity. These scavenging airflows hit each other in the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity and hit the inner wall of the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity. Thus, the scavenging airflows are attenuated in flow rate and hence prevented from diffusion toward the exhaust port by the scavenging-airflow attenuating cavity. On the other hand, the scavenging airflows exiting from the first divisional scavenging ports flow toward the top of the cylinder while striking one another and expelling the burnt gas into the exhaust port. In this manner, it is possible to make a layered distribution of gases for stratified scavenging, in which the scavenging gas, which is an air-fuel mixture introduced into the combustion chamber through the first and second divisional scavenging ports, distributes in a space in the cylinder apart from the exhaust port, which is a region in the combustion chamber apart from the exhaust port. On the other hand, the burnt gas distributes in a region next to the exhaust port.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. S60-156933 (No. 156933 of the year 1985) focuses attention to the role of the scavenging passage, which makes communication between the scavenging port opening to the combustion chamber and the crankcase, in a two-stroke internal combustion engine, and proposes an improvement to solve the blow-by problem mentioned above. More specifically, this publication proposes to provide main scavenging passages and sub scavenging passages separated from main scavenging passages by partition walls respectively. The main scavenging passages are continuous from first scavenging ports and the sub scavenging ports are continuous from second scavenging ports. Thus, this proposal uses second scavenging airflows of a higher velocity from the second scavenging ports to control first scavenging airflows from the first scavenging ports. In short, the publication No. S60-156933 proposes to control the flow directions of the first scavenging airflows by using the second scavenging airflows flowing from the second scavenging ports at a higher velocity. Thus, it discloses an embodiment, as a typical example, in which the second scavenging airflows prevent that the first scavenging airflows partly flow into the exhaust port by circulatory shunt.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,848,398 aims higher output power and lower emission, and proposes to regulate angles of sidewalls of a scavenging port approximately rectangular in cross section in a two-stroke internal combustion engine.
The Inventors made researches on the blow-by phenomenon relative to locations of scavenging ports opening to the combustion chamber. FIG. 10 schematically illustrates a typical one of known two-stroke internal combustion engines. Reference numeral 1 in FIG. 1 indicates an exhaust port. A pair of first and second scavenging ports 2 and 3 are provided, respectively, on the right and left symmetrical positions of an imaginary line CL that connects the center O of cylinder bore and the widthwise center of the exhaust port 1. These first and second scavenging ports 2 and 3 are oriented away from the exhaust port. This engine with multiple scavenging ports is a so-called four-flow scavenging engine having four scavenging ports 2, 2, 3, 3 in total.
FIG. 11 illustrates a three-dimensional aspect of the first and second scavenging passages 4 and 5, which extend longitudinally (in parallel to the axial line of the cylinder bore) from the crankcase to the combustion chamber, and the first and second scavenging ports 2, 3, which are upper ends of the first and second scavenging passages 4, 5. As understood from FIG. 11, in the conventional two-stroke internal combustion engine of the multi-scavenging-port type, each scavenging port (2, 3) is associated with a scavenging passage of its own, and each scavenging passage is substan3tially independent from each other. FIG. 12 shows a layout of the exhaust port 1, intake port 8, first and second scavenging passages 4 and 5 relative to the cylindrically shaped cylinder bore 7.
FIGS. 13 and 14 are diagrams similar to FIG. 10, in which FIG. 13 shows a version with the first and second scavenging ports 2 and 3 being remoter from the exhaust port 1, and FIG. 14 shows a version with the first and second scavenging ports 2 and 3 being closer to the exhaust port 1. In both figures, arrows indicate directions of scavenging airflows.
In the layout of FIG. 13 with the scavenging ports 2 and 3 being remoter from the exhaust port 1, gas exchange is difficult to take place in the in-cylinder region DS between the first scavenging port 2 and the exhaust port 1. In the layout of FIG. 14, in contrast, with the scavenging ports 2 and 3 being nearer to the exhaust port 1, the scavenging airflows supplied from the first scavenging ports 2 are partly liable to shunt and escape through the exhaust port 1 in the former half of each exhaust stroke of the engine.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a two-stroke internal combustion engine capable of effectively preventing the blow-by phenomenon without the need for significant modifications in its typical structure.